Eisenhower’s Timeless Virtues: If only more presidents aspired to do less.

Ike is actually a guy I have come to like more and more over the years. He and I would not have seen eye to eye on many things, but he seems to have been thoughtful and sane. (2 things which appear to be in short supply with many of today’s “leaders.”) His farewell speech on the dangers of the Military Industrial Complex should be seen by anyone who cares about this country. Eisenhower’s fiscal disposition was reasonable. His general temperament sober.

Plus he liked golf which makes him OK in my book.

(From Reason)

What looked like defects then look better now. He ended one war, in Korea, and began no new ones. He balanced the federal budget three times and reduced the federal debt as a share of gross domestic product. He cut spending in inflation-adjusted dollars. He steered his party away from McCarthyism.

Inspiring speeches were not his thing. His supporters said “I like Ike,” not “I revere Ike.” Unlike Theodore Roosevelt, he resisted using the presidency as a “bully pulpit.” He lacked the grand ambitions of Franklin Roosevelt.

Critics who saw him as a do-nothing despaired at his popularity with the American people. Richard Strout wrote in The New Republic, “The less he does the more they love him.” A public with fresh memories of the Great Depression and World War II wanted tranquility, not transformation.